Gadgets Remind You to Exercise, Chew Your Food; Nagging or Nudging?

Reto Stamm hasn't lived with his parents for 12 years. Last fall, he got a digital stand-in.

When the webcam on Mr. Stamm's Mac computer caught him slouching, software called PostureTrack made an audible buzz. When he spent too much time on the couch, a thumb-size gadget tracking his physical activity flashed "ucandoit." When he failed too often at these goals, or others like going to bed on time and flossing, a life-cataloging website called Beeminder fined him $5 or more.

"It's like hard advice from a friend," says Mr. Stamm, a 37-year-old software developer from Half Moon Bay, Calif. The digital nudges, he says, "kind of run your life."

As inventors insert the Internet into ever more things, they are making a business out of what your mother used to needle you about. Some call it "Big Mother" tech—like George Orwell's all-knowing Big Brother, but with your best interests at heart.

There's a smart-utensil called the HAPIfork that measures how fast you eat, prodding you to slow down and chew. In a few weeks, a startup called Automatic will roll out a device that plugs into a car's onboard computer and chirps with what its maker calls "subtle audio cues" when a driver speeds, slams on the brakes or does other things behind the wheel that mother wouldn't like.

ENLARGE

Christoph Hewett tracks his physical activity with an Up bracelet and gets pep talks from 'goal-oriented' people he shares data with online.
Christoph Hewett

Raymond Lancione got a toothbrush in December that pesters him about his dental hygiene. His $50 Beam toothbrush wirelessly tells a phone app how often and how long he brushes his teeth, marking calendar days with missed brushings in red and awarding him prizes and praise for meeting brushing goals.

"It's possible now to have a device in the background of your life recording everything you do," says Mr. Lancione, 23, from Los Angeles. (His brush stopped collecting data when the battery ran out, so he says he might need "a little robot to go around the house and change them for me.")

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The prospect of a virtual Mom has long intrigued science fiction. Majel Barrett Roddenberry, the late wife of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry, provided her voice to the Enterprise computer, which both navigated the starship and made dinner. But computers don't always have a maternal instinct: In the film "Alien," a cold and withholding computer dubbed MU/TH/UR 6000 protected a nasty alien rather than the humans. She was just following protocol.

The demand for tech that tracks human beings with accelerometers, heart-rate sensors and GPS chips caught on about a decade ago with athletes looking to map better performance, and with a niche of "quantified self" enthusiasts who like running numbers on their own lives. Now Apple Inc.AAPL-0.87% retail outlets sell about two dozen trackers that coax people to go to bed earlier, lose weight and get physical exercise.

These devices manage "things you could, and should, self-govern that humans don't have the self-control to do," says Sarah Rotman Epps, a Forrester Research analyst who was among the first to use the term Big Mother.

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Beam Brush

The challenge for iMoms is toeing the line between helpful and nagging.

Last year, Greek tech-consultant and researcher Charalampos Doukas, who lives in Athens, bought a Fitbit One, a pedometer that measures how many steps he takes daily and how many calories he burns. He found the data wasn't enough to keep him motivated. "I needed something like a punishment," he says.

So about three months ago, Mr. Doukas wrote a program to connect his Fitbit data to an Internet-connected switch on his refrigerator that can shut it down if he doesn't exercise.

The notion of "helpful" feedback and reminders is in the eye of the beholder, says Brad Kittredge, director of product management at Jawbone Inc., maker of the Up bracelet, which tracks activity and sleep. Developing the product, his team spent some time studying the psychology of motivation. "Some people may thrive on course correction—remind me when I go off course," he says. "Others say I only want positive feedback."

The Up software's brightly colored graphics celebrate achievements, and offer "insights" to encourage better behavior. For those who need a literal nudge, Jawbone built in a service called "idle alert" that makes the bracelet vibrate if you sit still for more than, say, 15 minutes.

Digital mom can be embarrassing to have around. Heidi Reimer-Epp, chief executive of paper manufacturer Botanical PaperWorks in Winnipeg, Manitoba, says she sometimes quiets the buzz on her Up idle alert by doing a few jumping jacks in the office.

"I got busted today," says the 40-year-old. "One of my managers looked at me funny because I was pacing around the boardroom."

Christoph Hewett, who wears an Up in Melbourne, Australia, has used the Internet to outsource pep talks to strangers. He shares data about his fitness achievements with a team of about 40 people, mostly from other countries, whom he met online but never in person. They are a "bunch of really positive, really goal-oriented people," he says.

On a recent Tuesday, Mr. Hewett shared that he had taken 10,209 steps, commenting, "Hee Hee. I had to pace the living room to tip over 10k." Soon after, a half dozen virtual teammates awarded him kudos stickers.

Mr. Stamm, who paid Beeminder about $50 to improve his posture and other habits, says he ended up turning off PostureTrack because he found it "annoying." He also admits he is sitting up straighter now.

A digital tracker is better than an overprotective parent, says Mr. Stamm, because it has an off switch. "I choose to have this device," he says.

Analog moms still have their uses. Mr. Doukas, in Athens, is now working on a more foolproof form of motivation: Should he fail to reach his daily goal of 10,000 steps, the software will automatically notify his real-world mother. "It's embarrassing if your mom knows you aren't walking enough," he says.

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